EARTH SCIENCE NAME_____________________

DATE _____________________
Naked Science: “Birth of the Universe” Video Worksheet - Fill in the blanks as you watch the
video. BEWARE – some of these answers will go by quickly! Work in groups of 2-3 to get them all.

1. Everything we see around us is made of ______________: ___________, and __________________.

2. Each and every atom that makes up the car were ________________ by our growing ________________.

3. Physicist Lawrence Krauss: “We really are part star dust and part Big Bang dust. Most of the atoms in our

body are from the __________ of _____________, but some of them have been around since the earliest

moments of the _______________________. “

4. Each and every atom was created over ________________ of years as our universe evolved.

5. In the beginning, there was ______________.

6. According to Krauss, everything that now exists in our universe was once contained in a region smaller

than a ______________________.

7. The idea that our universe was once tiny originated with American astronomer _____________________.

8. In the 1920s, most astronomers believed that everything visible in the night sky were ________ that were

all part of our own ____________, the Milky Way.

9. Hubble showed that other galaxies were speeding ______________ from ours, and the further they were,

the _____________ they seemed to be moving.

10. The universe was ________________________; and if the universe was expanding, then at some point in

the past, it must have been ___________________.

11. Physicist David Spergel: “The Big Bang theory is not really a theory about how the universe began; it’s

really a theory of how the universe _____________________.”

12. When the universe was a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a minute old, it was about

the size of a _____________________.

14. A trillionth of a second after the big bang, our newborn universe was still expanding. But it didn’t contain

matter – it was pure ____________.

15. In the baby universe, pure energy was converted into particles of _____________.

16. The universe is now one millionth of a second old, and has expanded to _______ times the size of the

solar system. The universe was now relatively _________.

17. Over the next three minutes, the universe cools enough for protons and neutrons to bind together and

form the first atomic nuclei: ________________ and___ ______________. But they were not yet proper

atoms – they were missing a vital ingredient – the ______________, which were moving too fast to form

bonds with the nuclei.

18. 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe had expanded to the size of the ______________________.

It had cooled from billions of degrees Fahrenheit to a few _________________. As it cooled, the electrons

slowed down, and the universe was now ready to make its first true __________________.

19. Over the next millions of years, the young universe continued to expand and cool. So far, the universe had

only made _________________ and ______________ atoms. But the world we live in is made from more

than _____ different kinds of elements. The universe needed to get hydrogen and helium atoms to

________. And to do that, it needed to make ___________.

20. Tiny imperfections in the fledgling universe would become ______________ and _____________.

21. Over millions of years, hydrogen atoms clumped together and ____________________. The atoms began

fusing and releasing _____________. The gas clouds started to burn brightly. Eventually, a

_________ was born.

22. Early stars acted like giant thermonuclear reactors, creating new _____________________.
23. Fusion reactions inside these stars released enormous amounts of energy and heat, which forced atoms

to fuse to form new, heavier elements. Three helium nuclei combine to form ______________; two

carbon nuclei fuse to form ______________________; magnesium to form ___________________; and

so on over a period of hundreds of thousands of years, until silicon fused to form ____________.

24. Iron is a very special atom. Even the extreme temperature inside stars cannot get iron to _______ into

heavier elements.

25. To create the heavier elements like chromium and zinc and gold and platinum, the universe conjured up

massive exploding stars called ________________________.

26. When the giant stars that made the lighter elements ran out of _________, they collapsed in on

themselves, creating incredible amounts of energy and enormous explosions. Supernova explosions were

so powerful, they could fuse elements even heavier than iron, and ___________ the element production

line.

27. Without exploding stars, life itself _______________________________________.

28. Everything we can see on our planet was either made in the __________________ or inside a _________.

29. The universe we live in is nearly ____________________ years old.

30. One theory of the end of the universe suggests that our universe will “run out of steam” and start to

__________________, ending in a single super-dense pinpoint known as the ____________________.

31. However, analysis of Type 1A supernovae suggests that the universe is actually _________________ in its

expansion, meaning that the universe will not collapse.

32. Quite the opposite, it will continue to expand faster and faster. Our universe is literally ____________
____________________.

33. The most likely future is perhaps the most dismal one, where the universe becomes _______ and _______

and ___________. Space will become ___________ and _____________.